There are, it seems to me, two approaches to writing a good adventure story. A writer can either draw the reader anxiously along toward an uncertain ending, or disclose the outcome up front and let the reader settle into the adventure itself. I don’t imagine either approach is easy, but the writer who gives away the ending, does, I think, take on some particularly daunting challenges. To do it well—to produce a page-turner—as Allan Goldstein has done with The Confessions of a Catnip Junkie, is therefore commendable.

Catnip Junkie is the story of two-year-old Doo Doo, a restless orange tabby whose curiosity takes him coast-to-coast and back again, told from the perspective of an older, much wiser cat. “I am two cats,” he says. “The Doo Doo who was born of this story and the Doo Doo who lived it, fourteen years ago.”

Perhaps it’s this dual role that makes Doo Doo such a charismatic narrator, his confessions so compelling. Speaking of which, I have a confession of my own: I was a little hesitant to delve into Catnip Junkie. Four-hundred pages of cat-speak? Really? (Confession #2: I do talk to my cats, and more often than not reply—a different voice for each of them—on their behalf. Still, I do my best to spare others.) Once I picked it up, though, I found the book difficult to put down—due, in no small part, to the numerous scrapes recounted by a feline protagonist once “full of lust, mostly wanderlust.”

“I have dreams of that used-to-be-me cat being trapped all the time. He was always plotting an escape, making an escape, escaping. I wonder, how could a cat get himself stuck so often? Fourteen years later that is still a marvel to me, even more than his whiskersbreadth escapes. He still brags about those, the cat-who-used-to-be-me thought he was pretty slick. He was, but he was also an idiot. I can see that now, but he couldn’t.”

But Catnip Junkie is surprisingly touching, too—more so, I suppose, for anybody who’s ever had a cat go missing. In the end, the need to be with his people proves more powerful than the catnip that lured him away. “Having loving humans,” confesses Doo Doo, is “like the late-morning sun on your back, a belly full of food, and a head floating in the bright clouds of nipland, only better.”

With motivation like that, it’s no wonder this hero’s journey is such a delight to settle into.

Yup, that cat looks totally hooked -> Just like our Mr. Weasley is LOL. His brother Benny-Ben-Ben-Benjie-Bunny (Bennie for short…) was able to get off the nip-sauce after a brief stint in the “spin-dry” cycle with Eli, our A.D.D. cat.

My five cats and I would LOVE to read this book! Two are orange, two are blue, one is black. Of the orange and blue cats, one each is a tuxedo cat. But they all love cat stories of any color.

We are avid fans of Rita Mae Brown’s Sneaky Pie mystery series, as well as the Warrior series by Erin Hunter.

In the Sneaky Pie mysteries, the dogs and cats talk amongst themselves and assist the humans in solving the mysteries in very believable ways–but they can’t talk like we can.

In the Warriors series, the cats definitely speak their own language, but it’s easy to understand once you get into reading. The series follows several generations of feral cats in a mythological, epic-journey manner reminiscent of Watership Down but more accessible.

We’d just love adding “The Confessions of a Catnip Junkie” to the list!

Several orange cats have passed through my life. Each very wise and eccentric. I can “hear” them each sharing the admissions of that used-to-be-me-cat. And being willing to allow me to read of another of their kind while they snuggle in to my body warmth. The Black One claims 400 pages would be a wonderful length of time to stay curled in between covers. So, here I am throwing in my (their) comments in hopes of a good winter’s read. (:

“Nipland!!”
I LOVE it!!
I was a little hesitant too but knew moderncat had never steered me wrong before so I read the book review & am happy & proud to proclaim that I want to read about Doo Doo’s adventure with the nip and his people!
Sounds intriguing!!

Really hope I win, but if I don’t, I’ll buy a copy anyway. My favorite book genre is travel essays, especially those filled with humor gleaned from comparative observation. We only dare to imagine those provocative images through feline eyes!

I enjoy first person cat stories, and Jeanne B. didn’t mention Shirley Rousseau Murphy’s Joe Grey, and don’t forget Carole Nelson Douglas’ Midnight Louie mysteries. My cats are indoor cats although 2 of them won’t believe it. Biters and KC sneak out any chance they get. Biters stays in the yard, but KC was once gone 35 days. The others wouldn’t go out even though KC left a huge hole in a screen, and I didn’t have the Bengal family yet. I’m going to the library site after this and see if they have the book.